White Domestic Terror Is Thriving In the New Year

When a mass killer is not brown, authorities usually hesitate to call them a terrorist.

Texas authorities identified two suspected killers Tuesday who died in a shootout with Houston police officers on Monday, in what was the latest in a series of killings involving white domestic terrorists.

They were identified as Rhogena Nicholas, 58, and Dennis Tuttle, 59, according to the Star-Telegram.

Five Houston police officers were wounded in the shooting while serving a search warrant for narcotics. Nicholas and Tuttle opened fire as soon as officers breached the door at a residence in southeast Houston, Police Chief Art Acevedo said. The narcotics officers announced themselves as they entered the front door, and then the officers came immediately under gunfire.

Four of the officers were struck by semi-automatic fire and another officer was injured in the knee but not by gunfire, officials said. Two officers were in critical but stable condition.

Meet Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas – The new faces of American terror.

Yesterday they shot 4 police officers in Houston, Texas.

Conservatives covered it all day long while they assumed it was somebody Black who shot the cops. Today, they are silent. pic.twitter.com/wl8ezlsJHd

Since 9/11, some of the most horrific acts of terrorism in the United States have been committed by American citizens. However, when the attacker is not brown, there is usually hesitation to call them a terrorist. From the Aurora movie shooting in 2012 to the Las Vegas shooter in 2017, terrorism is alive and well in this country — and the culprits rightfully should be called domestic terrorists.

Also on Tuesday, Louisiana authorities said Dakota Theriot confessed to killing five people in two separate shootings over the past weekend, WWL-TV reported. Theriot, 21, said he stole his father’s handgun before using it to kill a woman believed to be his girlfriend, her brother, and her father, as well as his own parents.

Authorities say that suspect Dakota Theriot confessed to the killing of five people in Livingston and Ascension Parish and that he used his father's handgun to commit the crime. https://t.co/PJHN7jkAQ5

On Jan. 23, 21-year-old Zephen Xaver allegedly shot five people execution-style at a SunTrust Bank in Sebring, Florida. He had reportedly talked in the past about his desire to kill or harm people, authorities said. After shooting his victims, Xaver called 911 and told dispatchers his whereabouts and that he was armed with a handgun.

In another case, three white domestic terrorists were sentenced Jan. 25 to at least 25 years each in federal prison for plotting to kill Somali-American Muslim immigrants in Kansas.

The three men were found guilty in April on one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of conspiracy to violate the housing rights of their intended victims.

They received sentences of 25, 26 and 30 years on charges of conspiring to detonate a bomb at an apartment complex in Garden City where Muslim refugees lived, U.S. Department of Justice officials said in a statement.